Climbing, bikepacking, skiing & packrafting in the north

Everyday & Hiking Essentials

Today I want to reach out to all readers, and be a nosy bastard about what are your essential items carried when you're out backpacking, and when you're in the city! The idea came to me when I was reading a German Photography blog, and I thought it would be interesting to do something similar for the readers of Hiking in Finland. Lemme show you:

My UL essentials when backpacking.

My essentials, which I nearly always carry on me, are my knife in its sheath with a Light My Fire firesteel attached to it, a small compass with thermometer, and my kuksa. These allow me, should I in some miraculous way lose my backpack with all my belongings, to navigate, make a fire, drink water and build a shelter and backpack frame and rope, etc. I carry the knife usually in a cargo pocket of my pants, and clip the kuksa and compass with the carabiner to a belt loop. In that way they're always close and ready when I need them. To be honest, I also often still carry the phone and wallet + keys in a pocket - I learned this lesson the hard way once, as I lost the latter ones in a bus accident. They're useful when you get back into civilization, I hear ;)

Compare that to the stuff I carry when I am in the city:

Yeps, a whole lot more - somehow all that modern stuff in civilization adds up! Wallet, keys, money, and phone go into the pockets of my pants, sunglasses on my head, and the rest packs into the Sacoche bag from Locus Gear. It gives me that incredible outdoor UL nerd look, when I walk with my Spinnaker man-bag through the park! With the good weather we have, I often venture into the nearby park with the iPad, notebook and book to work. Thanks to free tethering of iPhone to iPad I can also browse the net then, which is useful. I find when I sit in the park, in the shadow of a birch with a light breeze going, that I get completely other ideas when sitting inside. It is fantastic for creativity and getting another perspective. Try it!

Notebook and book are there for me to plot down ideas, draw, read and get new, fresh ideas. I belong to the group of people who remember and learn best by writing the read stuff down, so if I go through a good book (like REWORK above) I want to have a pen & paper at hand to write down the ideas which I get while reading, and how I could apply them. I could use the iPad, but writing with a digital keyboard just is not the same as writing with old-fashioned pen and paper.

So, that are my Everyday & Hiking Essentials - now I want to know yours! Snap a photo of your hiking & everyday essential, and either write a own blogpost about it and post the link into the comments, or post the link to the photo & description in the comments. In the end we will have an interesting collection of what people carry from all over the world when out hiking and in civilization!